PH9HB in the air on the air

Hello and a warm welcome to the website of PH9HB.

My name is Jerry (Jeroen) and I live near Eindhoven in the Netherlands.

From 2000 until 2015, I was based in Amsterdam flying Boeing 737 NG for Transavia airlines, a daughter company of KLM.

Since summer of 2015, I am based at Eindhoven for the same company doing the same work.

On longer flights and when cockpit duties permit (during cruise in low workload environment) I use the onboard HF set, which works from 2-30 MHz in AM and USB only! We have Collins HFS 900 D radios that produce 400 W PEP.

The antenna is of the shunt-fed-slotted type, very common on larger airliners these days. It is an integral part of the leading edge of the vertical fin in the tailsection. With this antenna set-up, we actually tune the outer skin of the aircraft. This means that theoretically the entire fuselage becomes and huge HF antenna! The length of the fuselage of a B737-800 is 39 m and the wingspan is 36 m. Because of the swept wing, we also get some directivity. Since the HF set is normally used to talk to Air Traffic Control from where we came or where we are going, this effect is beneficial. So when I fly to the Canary Isles which is SW, I can usually work VK, ZL and JA over the long path when I have a morning flight. Coming back from Greece, we fly a NW course and on most afternoons, I can work North America...

I have a TWITTER account where I announce my HF activities on the evening of the day before a longer flight.

Potential followers MUST PROVIDE THEIR CALL SIGN in order to get accepted!

Because we have no LSB on the HF set, I am more or less restriced to 20 m and up. Sometimes I use USB Channel 7.185 MHz on evening flights and very rarely also 5.363 MHz

Unfortunately some operators do not understand that the USB/LSB use is only a recommendation and NOT A RULE...! It seems hard for some to accept the odd transmission on a dedicated USB channel, because obviously they are not familiar with the above!

So I regularly get an agitated OM, reminding me of my mistake, when I transmit in USB, when they think that I should not...!